We’re heading away for a week to France and I think it might be a good idea to get some breakdown cover just in case.

Who’s decent to use for cover?
I’ll probably get some that covers UK and European trips as we’ve got a few trips planned over the next year or so.

Did ours through Adrian flux. We’ve an older car so limited options as most of the big guys only do newish cars. Was a reasonable price for an annual policy. Never claimed but the reviews from people who have seem ok

AA, expensive for a yearly policy though.

AA, expensive for a yearly policy though.

AA look pretty expensive but full RAC cover seems to be about £65 which doesn’t seem too bad?

We’ve an older car so limited options as most of the big guys only do newish cars.

Same problem here. In the end I opened a Nationwide Flex+ account. It was £10 a month, but just gone up to £13. Full euro car cover and travel insurance. You’ll need to make a one off payment to upgrade your travel insurance to cover mountain biking for the year (£45). Snow sports are covered under the standard policy, so its good for winter sports.

And open it as a joint account to get your partner covered for the same amount.

Hth

Try this lot

Breakdown Cover

If you take the personal policy you also get cycle breakdown cover – They will get you home if you break your bike!

Are you going through the tunnel? If so you can get Euro breakdown cover for the trip when buying your ticket. You can also get a toll tag at the same time.

Yes, going through the tunnel.
Their breakdown cover was pretty expensive, about £40 for a single trip compared to £65 for annual cover with RAC.

I looked at the toll tags but easy sure if it would actually work out any cheaper than just paying the tolls as you get to them? I have to say I didn’t quite understand how it worked.

I looked at the toll tags but easy sure if it would actually work out any cheaper than just paying the tolls as you get to them? I have to say I didn’t quite understand how it worked.

Its more expensive but you can use the non stop lane. Handy if you are driving alone as the booths are on the wrong side. At busy times it’ll save a little bit of queueing but I’ve never really felt the need. Would maybe shave 5 mins off our Alps trip

ADAC – essentially the european AA and use the AA in the UK.

Was pretty competitive last time I checked (if not cheaper than UK cover extended).

We managed to wangle RAC cover for a 40 year old car and paid monthly and only paid for 1 month. I think they have since changed their policy, it was a lot more than £65 for the year 😆

Tag is more expensive, when we arrived there were others who drove and were stuck at a couple of tolls for 30 minutes due to the queues. It also means the passenger doesn’t have to wake up and deal with the toll booth. Oh it shaves a lot more than 5 mins off. One year we left 30 mins later and was at the lunch stop 20 mins before the others, same route, same speed on the Autoroute, we put it down to not having to queue or even stop at a toll booth.

We used Vehicle Rescue Direct earlier this year. Was £22 for 9 days in France for a 12 year old car.
Didn’t have to claim, but they had good reviews.

I used http://www.eversure.com this summer for the trip over to Italy. £34.90 for a 9 year old land rover for 12 days

Check the small print as none of them cover you for the motorways in France, it’s all done by one company who will charge you. Your cover will state something like they will contribute X amount to the cost of getting you off the motorway and to the local garage. I think i read something similar for main A roads as well.

We had RAC – and lucky we did as Auto Transmission fluid leaked at B&B on swiss alp this summer. They were very helpful and organised everything incl v. exciting tow down very tight switchbacks.

Covered hotel cost as well.

I use Rac. The comprehensive cover is pretty much the best out there.. But you do pay for it. Its not the cheapest but having needed the policy 3 years ago when I broke down on a French motorway with bikes and kids in the car… The service was outstanding. They sorted everything out, called back when promised, sorted parts & repair. Organised taxi to get us back to camp then delivered me the car when fixed (direct to campsite). All labour was covered too (up to 1500 squid).

Really impressed with the service.

Cost me £60 for 8 days cover which is probably double of what I could have got it for….. But a small price to pay if you do get stuck.

Oh and as above.. I did have to pay directly for motorway recovery as that’s all privately handled in France. They take the car back to a main depot off the motorway and rac deal with it from there.

Money was refunded by rac in about 10 days after submitting the receipt for the recovery.

We have an annual RAC policy that covers Europe as well. We had a problem when our motorhome’s power steering pump died while we were in France a few years back and it was dealt with reasonably well by them (although rather less so by the Ford dealer over there). No charge for any of the recover activities or for the hire car they sorted out while we were waiting for it to get fixed.

I’ve used vehicle rescue direct before, and they were happy paying out when I had a breakdown in Denmark, luckily I got the car fixed for a crate of beer (true.. and bizarre story!) but they were prepared to pay to fly my passengers home and put me up for a weekend until getting the car fixed on Monday.

If your car is a ford just get your car serviced at ford, includes European rescue cover.

I got mine through my direct line insurance as an add on for 12 months. When I come back from the trip I cancel it so only pay for the time away. Having said that I think the year was only £140 or so, pretty reasonable. Even as a gold AA member the euro cover is trouser stiffening

Check you havent got it already, some insurance policies come with European breakdown cover, but not U.K.

It’ll be in your policy wording

MIL and SIL drove out to southern France in a 3 year old Passat, went into limp once there (clogged DPF) AA sorted it and replacement hire car.
Expensive but worth it in this instance.

Follow up from the above post, turns out the not quite yet 3 yr old Passat with 20k miles and full VW service history has shat its turbo ( not the DPF as I suspected). VW Perpignan are wanting €2k to repair.

The AA are dragging it back to Bury VW and the girls have got a comparable sized hire car from the AA that they can drive back to home in.